Our theme for April is nature.

The journaling reads:
I’ve never lived in a city that wasn’t by the water. Istanbul, where I grew up, is two peninsulas. I then went to college in Pittsburgh which has three big rivers. After college, I moved to Manhattan. An island. After that, we moved to La Jolla, which is by the Pacific Ocean. Now, we live in Menlo Park, which is in the Silicon Valley peninsula. I’ve also lived in London on and off for a few months and Japan for six months. Both of which are islands. I told you: I’ve always had water nearby.

There’s something magical about the sea, for me. When we lived in San Diego, we used to often go to Torrey Pines State Reserve where you can see incredible views of the vast ocean and I remember the feeling of peace that filled me up each time we went. I miss being that close to the sea. I love looking at the water and seeing nothing but endless amounts of water meeting with the sky so it’s just an expansive palette of blues, puffy whites and the sandy brown of the beach. I cannot imagine anything more beautiful and calming for my soul.

I am one of those people who is always on the go go go. I literally have a list of fifteen things I try to get done everyday. I do so many things simultaneously, too. I feed the baby while I read my book or do some craft with my son. I watch TV while I do my art journal. (I am watching it right now as I write this.) I am very accomplishment-oriented. Or at least execution-oriented. I am a big doer. Relaxing is not my thing.

There’s this time at the end of most Yoga classes where you lie down and you have to lie there, be present and not think, not sleep, just be aware. I always hated that part. My mind would go on overdrive and think of the fifty thousand items to put on my todo list. Or things I was supposed to have done that day. Or how I forgot to call. On and on. Let’s just say I never actually relaxed.

But over the years, this is something that I’ve grown to value more and more. I’ve taken enough classes to value the importance of resting and recovering, especially after a time of hard work. And I’m also trying to learn to take the time to pause and observe. To just do nothing and be more aware and be more mindful. I think this is really important.

It helps me assess my emotions and control my reaction to things happening around me. Even when I can’t stop myself from making the same mistake, making it with awareness is actually helpful. Pausing allows me to pay attention. It allows me to step back. It also allows me to be more grateful. To observe the million little things that happen in my day that I would otherwise not notice or gloss over.

So now, I am trying to pause more. Observe my kids playing when they don’t know I am looking. Pause while creating a piece of art. Listen to my husband while he talks instead of planning my response or tuning out. Pause while I feel sad or uninspired or frustrated. Pause so I can give the feelings a lot of attention and then let them go, so I can exchange those feelings with gratitude for what’s here. For who’s here.

It’s hard for me to pause, but I think it’s very valuable and I am working hard to take the time more and more. Even if it’s in millisecond increments. I hope you take a few seconds to pause today, too. Go out for five minutes and just observe nature. Be grateful for the very ordinary things today. Pause to notice them.

They are the miracles of life.

Our theme for April is nature.

The journaling reads:
In 2003, Jake and I took two months to drive across the United States. It was one of my biggest dreams to do this trip. We went to forty states. Instead of doing all the big cities, we decided it would be more pleasant to visit each of the National Parks so we mapped our trip accordingly. Especially since we planned to camp a lot.

It was more beautiful than I could have imagines it. We visited the White Sands, the Painted Desert, the Great Sand Dunes, the Everglades, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Zion, Bryce among many others. We saw canyons and caverns, sand and lava, swamps and mountains. The beauty of this country is vast and varied. And it’s breathtaking.

What’s even more amazing is that you can buy something called a National Parks pass which, for a small fee, will get you into any of the parks for free, for a whole year. It was the best purchase we made the whole summer. I am so thankful we live in a country that preserves nature.

When I was a little girl, I kept diaries religiously. I used to write in them, carry them around, and make sure to never ever miss a day. If you ask any of my friends or acquaintances from that time in my life, I am confident that they will still remember my diaries. When I came to the US for college, I tried to keep them up but, for some reason, I could no longer do it. Little by little, I lost the habit. I regret that for many reasons and I have started keeping a daily dairy of sorts on my blog this year. But it’s not the same as what I used to do.

Over the years, I tried to start several diaries and kept picking up different kinds of notebooks that spoke to me. I bought magnificent ones, expensive ones, simple ones, lined ones and ones with squares. I started writing many times, but never went through with it for more than a week or two. During this time, one of the things I bought was a 5-year journal.

This cute book is arranged so that each page is a specific date, April 1, April 2, April 3 etc. And each page has five sections. Each section has a few lines. The way you use it is by journaling for a few lines each day and then starting the book over the next year and writing in the second section of each page. On and on for five years. This way, at the end of five years, when you look on a particular date (say April 6) you can see what you did on April 6 for the last five years. I thought this was the cutest idea.

But I never did it.

It just felt boring once I started it. I did the same stuff everyday. Even before I had kids. I worked. I came home. I read. I slept. That was about it. So I wasn’t able to keep this journal either. But I loved the idea of having a simple record of my year. Even if it wasn’t for 5 years, I’d love to be able to write 2-3 sentences everyday for a whole year and then to be able to read them. Wouldn’t that be fun? A different kind of journaling. A small snapshot of my year.

For those of you who use Facebook or Twitter, that’s something you could do, too. Use your statuses for a snapshot of your year. I don’t use either that much so, for me, I realized that the “Three Things I’m Grateful For” exercise I do daily is my record of the year. Yes, I often am thankful for generic things like my kids but since I have to come up with three, I also have something specific to my day. Like yesterday it was about a trip to the doctor and discovering that my little boy didn’t have a third ear infection (thankfully!). So if I were to collect all of the sentences I wrote so far, I’d have a pretty accurate snapshot of my year up until now. And from the wonderful perspective of giving thanks.

Isn’t that neat?

It isn’t something I thought of when I decided to do my three-things-daily but it’s a wonderful side effect and I am grateful for it.

So my message to you today is to try writing down one sentence everyday. If you’re only going to do one, pick something specific to your day. You use Facebook? Do it there. Or Twitter. Or your blog. Or a piece of paper. Find a jar and stick your pieces in there. Write the date. When you’re feeling down, pick one from the jar. Let it inspire you. At the end of the year, dump your jar and see a wonderfully happy record of your year.

You will be grateful you did it, I promise.